One Word or Two?

When speaking to believers about a number of subjects, we commonly get this response:

“Well, I don’t see that in the New Testament.”

Many times, it’s there, but due to a non-Hebraic mindset, they cannot see it.

However, we have a more important question to pose in light of this response:

Did God give one word (the Word of God, the Bible) or two different and contradicting words (Old Testament and New)? Is God the same, unchanging God (Mal. 3:6; Heb. 13:8) throughout time or does He change His mind? Did He have a lobotomy and become a different God on the page (inserted by men) that says, “The New Testament”?

Believers seem to think that the New Testament stands alone, is independent of the Old Testament, and has made the Old Testament obsolete.

Yet, without the Old Testament we’d have no idea what the New Testament means when it talks about:

the lamb of God
sin/sinless
covenant
prophet
repent/repentance
sacrifice
atonement
Messiah
Virgin with child
Holy Spirit
Son of God
Baptize
Righteousness/unrighteousness
The devil (who he is, what he does)
Commandments
Law/lawlessness
David/house of David
“Solomon in all his glory”
“Show yourself to the priest,…present the offering that Moses commanded…” (Matthew 8:4; Leviticus 14:1-9) ……….

This list could go on and on. The above items are just a few found in a few chapters of Matthew! If we included all the terminology that comes from the Old Testament, the list would be longer than anyone would choose to read!

Perhaps we should state it this way:

If we REMOVED the terminology from the New Testament that originates in the Old, then we’d have very little of the New Testament left to read and it certainly wouldn’t make much sense.

The Old Testament is very necessary in order to understand the New and put its events and vocabulary into context. Since so much of the New hinges on the the Old, how can we as believers say that it no longer applies to us?

Indeed, if our Saviour lived according to the Old Testament instructions, and upheld those instructions in his dealings with people (such as the last item on the list, above), since John tells us to “walk as He walked” (1 John 2:6) and since Paul also gave us these instructions by telling us to “follow me as I follow Messiah” (1 Corinthians 11:1), how can we believe that we are no longer under any obligation to obey the Old Testaments teaching and instructions (torah)?

We submit to you that this is a misunderstanding of the Old and New Testament by the church and is a teaching that has been perpetuated through the traditions of man but is not upheld by the Word of God and its plain instructions on the pages of our Bibles.

Therefore, the reader must choose between tradition – what they’ve been taught - or obedience to the Word of God through the example of the Messiah’s life and obedience to His Words:

“And He answered and said to them, ‘And why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?’” Matthew 15:3